You are Important 

You were thought of in the mind of your Creator before the world came into existence. Before atoms and molecules were spoken into being there was a reason for creating you. There is someone who wants to share their life with you and before the first movement of this planet or first touch of sunlight upon the world he knew when you would arrive. You are not an accident and your life has meaning and purpose. 
 
You were thought of before the painting was on the canvas and before the ingredients of the Universe were mixed together.  You were thought of before time began when, in the mystery of eternity, there was a plan to share life with you.
 
 You are special, you are unique, you are noticed; you were created to be loved and to love. There is someone out there who knows all about you. He watches over you and wants to be known by you. He is your heavenly Father and this is His world. He sent His Son Jesus so that you could come home.
 
 This world we live in is His, yet we, along with all others, have damaged this world in making it our own. We were not created to live impersonal lives or be separated from one another or the one who created us, and are walking along the wrong path.
 
Whilst exercising great strength and power, we are, in reality, damaged and suffering. We are not as we should be. We are like paint that has run from the painting, a shadow of an image that is not our own. Our beauty has been distorted and our hopes are so often crushed, yet we still have great value no matter how misshaped we have become.  After all, you can smash a gold ring with a hammer and make it unrecognisable, yet the value of the gold still remains the same. Yet no matter what has happened, you are important, you are noticed and your life has meaning and purpose. You are also unique.
 
 
 You are body and soul-spirit, birthed into existence for a life, which was made to engage both physically and spiritually. No matter what has happened to you, and no matter how useless you feel, the Bible says you are very special, and you have a heavenly Father who is looking for you and who wants to share His life with you.
 
 
You are not an animal, you are a human being: You are both physical and spiritual – body and soul/spirit. Your body is not the product of impersonal forces, and your soul-spirit is not to be seen as if it were an early-morning mist floating over the river. Soul-spirit has substance, and speaks of the power of life and of thoughts, feelings, will and emotions; soul-spirit speaks of where ‘you’ resides.
 
 
You were birthed with the ability to reach out to another who resides far beyond the realms of time, yet has entered this world and the world we have created. There is no need to be alone. You were created to be noticed and to be known; to feel, to reach out, and to connect with the author of all life who wants to be known as a Father.
 
 
No matter what others have said, you are special and were not made to function on a purely physical plane or in accordance with the desires of others who impose their will on your life, yet don’t know you. You were not created to be defined by the labels of the world that so many want to stick to your life. You are not someone to be tinkered with or fixed and improved upon according to the perceptions of others…
 
Neither are you something for others to manipulate or distort through words and actions that try to master and control that which is not theirs to master or control in any way. You were not created to exist like this and neither were you created to suffer isolation and loneliness...
 
Neither are you simply a bunch of chemicals in a cold and mechanistic world. You are body and soul-spirit, awesomely and wonderfully made, and there is someone out there who wants to meet you. You are lost but there is someone who wants to bring you home. He made you, but you live by what you have become.  Like all of us you struggle to make sense out of life, yet He holds the blueprint and knows how to help us. You need to know His story.
 
 
 
His Story.
 
In the beginning, when time had just been taken out of its wrapping and the world was like a fresh spring flower, God created humankind. When all was fresh and new, like the first golden rays of sunlight bathing a beautiful summer’s day washed in early-morning dew, a man was birthed into existence. Spirit was breathed upon dust and man became a living person – body and soul-spirit. A new heart began to pump and lungs drew in a first breath of fresh air. Eyes were opened and touched with myriads of colours and ears began to hear. Muscles were stretched and life was experienced as a world was given in love to the first human being.
 
 
You are a person – you are body and soul-spirit and these are not to be viewed as separate entities. God breathed and spirit impacted flesh as man became a living soul – a person – not one among many, but unique.
Think of it like this: Imagine a picture made up of many different colours. Each colour contributes to the picture and should not be seen on its own. You are body and soul-spirit and you have a Father. Now think of a cake, recognising that as you do so you do not think of the individual ingredients but the cake as a whole. You are not a body with a soul-spirit floating about inside you. You are not trapped inside yourself – you are one, you are unique and awesomely and wonderfully made. You are not an accident and your life does have meaning and purpose.
 
 
Our bodies speak of being able to engage with creation – speaking of that which is the vehicle of sense-consciousness. Our Soul-spirit speaks of self-consciousness, and our ability to think and interact with those around us who are also on a journey, not as competitors, but as participators in all that goes on.
 
The spiritual aspect of our life also speaks of the strength and power of life and the ability to know, think and interact with God our Creator. But we have fallen.
 
Like all who have walked the dusty realms of this beautiful yet difficult world, we have fallen. We have followed wrong ideas or been pushed down the wrong path by events that may have been out of our ability to control.
 
 We have taken a wrong turn and we have built our own lives with thought patterns that pull us down with actions that damage the very life we thought we were protecting. We go against the very fabric of the Universe, against the way we were meant to live and against the only One who really holds the keys to life in His hands.
 
We think we know what is best, and in doing so, continually miss the mark of our high calling. We live out our own ideas, and ignore the spiritual food offered by the One who wants to feed us. We are out in the cold and unable to get warm. We are on the outside of the house and can only look in. We have a heavenly Father, yet are separated from Him and are unable to benefit from His wisdom, knowledge and understanding or experience life in all its fullness.  We are fallen and in a world that is distant from our heavenly Father and we suffer the consequences.
 
 
In being separated from its Creator, this world can be likened to a flower that has been plucked from the garden and will one day wither and die. Then again, the people of this world can be likened to a child who has run away from home and is cold, lonely and lost.
 
There are consequences to our actions that are fuelled by wrong thinking and are also often affected by the legacies of others. These legacies are the words that have been spoken at us without real consideration or understanding; a legacy of words spoken by those who don’t really know us. These legacies affect our lives and place increasing burdens on those who already have too much to carry. Yet there is hope.
 
There is someone who is out there who wants to meet us. There is someone who is willing to come up close. There is someone who wants to help us come away from merely existing and bring us into life in all its fullness. This ‘someone’ is the One who speaks across eternity. He is the One who says, “You have a heavenly Father.”
 
 
This heavenly Father has never made fun of you, will never write you off and does not ignore you as so many absent fathers seem to do. This heavenly Father regards nothing in your life as trivial or insignificant and knows every hair on your head. He is interested in you and offers a freedom that the world cannot give, if you are willing to accept it.
 
This heavenly Father can break the chains that hold you and the thoughts that crush you. He offers you freedom from all that is wrong – including what self has become – yet cannot give this freedom to those who are not willing to receive. Like all of us you need to understand the heart of man’s problem, to accept what we are all really like and accept that He is the answer to all that is wrong in life.
 
In living our own way we miss the mark: the high calling on our lives. In living our own way we transgress laws that are there to help us because these laws speak of a Father showing us the right way to live. In living our own way we transgress these laws and end up damaged. We transgress the law and are the ones who end up broken. For example, we cannot break the law of gravity, because it remains in place no matter what we do. However, if we ignored the law of gravity we would smash our life to pieces if we jumped off a tall building.
 
In transgressing His law it is our minds that are broken, our actions that are incomplete, and our emotions that continuously leave us feeling drained.
 
Our actions make us the outsider, looking on as life passes by. Our actions mean that we have become the disturber of peace and the rebel without any real cause. Yet someone else is willing to enter our small and struggling world of black and grey: a world of bruises and broken dreams. Someone else has come into the world that we, and all others, have fashioned:  where we are controlled rather than in control and where our wounds receive no care.
 
There is someone out there who knows us and wants to be known, who sees us and wants to be seen, who offers a hand that is ours to take – the hand of a heavenly Father reaching out through His Son Jesus.
 
 
In Jesus we see that God does not sit on a distant throne and blast out orders without any real interest in those He shouts at. Neither is He a cosmic dictator who has no concern for who we are. The One who reaches out to us is not like this. He is the all-powerful One who limits Himself and enters humanity to stand in our place. He is a King who has come to serve, the perfect One who took responsibility for the mess we make and gave His life so that we could come home.
 
You are important, you are noticed and someone is very interested in you – someone who has drawn close in order to uplift, and strengthen you in new ways. His name is Jesus and he is in the ultimate restoration business.
 
Jesus did not come because He felt sorry for you and He did not arrive in order to prop up your present existence. Jesus has not come to work according to your blueprint of life. He has come to make you whole, to bring you home, and to help you find who you really are in an environment of loving-kindness.
 
You were not made to look within yourself to find the answer to all that goes on, or to define your life through the identity others try to place on you. You were created to look away to the compassionate One – to look to Jesus.
 
In turning to Him you can find forgiveness and in turning to Him you will never lose your true identity, but only what you have become. The hurt can be removed, the labels can be burnt and the memories that damage can lose their power as new life is given – but only through Jesus.
 
Jesus mixed with all people regardless of background, class or upbringing because all people were important to Him and still are. Jesus was a man filled with a passion and a desire to do His father’s will and so He shared His life with the downtrodden and outcasts of society. He also reached out to the powerful, rich and successful for all are in need of a Saviour and friend – even religious people.
 
Take a look at those who came to Jesus and you might be surprised, because it was rarely the clean, well versed or religiously polished people of the day. Instead, it was people like the tax collector who had betrayed so many, the leper whom no one wanted to touch (Mat 8:3), and the blind and the lame who found healing in an upturned Temple courtyard (Mat 21:13-16). It was the Centurion (Mat 8:13) and it was little children; it was also those who had been oppressed by authority yet could, in Jesus, see an authority that sought to strengthen and uplift all who turned to the heavenly King.
 
No one exercised such authority as Jesus did. His authority was from on high and could calm a storm (Mat 4:39), reach through death to raise Jairus’ daughter (Lk 7:11f) and restore the leprosy-ridden skin of a marginalised leper (Mat 8:2).
 
In Jesus we see the Master of Life going about His business: the business of reconciliation and restoration.  Then, having shown the world what His Father was like, Jesus went through a horrendous death as He stood in our place and took all our wrong-doing and made it His.
 
As the perfect sacrifice, death could not hold Jesus and He rose victorious and offers forgiveness and reconciliation to all who come to Him. Your Father wants you to come home and Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
 
 
Hope.
 
Despite the tragedy there is hope, despite the pain there can be healing. Despite fragmented lives, there can be wholeness – but only through Jesus Christ and the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.  But are we willing to accept that we need forgiveness and that Jesus has died in our place so that we can find forgiveness and reconciliation?  Will we come to Him?
 
Through Jesus our lives can be made right with God who knows how to feed, nurture, encourage and uplift us. This does not mean that life will be easy, but it will be life with our Father, as opposed to eternal separation. To know this fellowship, this friendship and this love, we need to understand what repentance is all about.
 
Repenting is about turning away from the house that I have built in my mind - where I hide - and turning from the way I have lived life my own way. Repenting is about turning to take the hand that reaches out to me, as I acknowledge that my ways are inadequate and that I need forgiveness. In turning to Jesus the prison around my mind is then broken open, the place where I hide torn down and life is poured in where there was only existence before. In Jesus I find forgiveness and reconciliation; I also find that His presence and power now helps me to live in new ways.
 
You are important to the One who is looking for you. The One who is looking for you paid the price for all you have done wrong, and offers forgiveness and reconciliation. He promises to walk with us by the Spirit and to never leave us or forsake us.
 
Spirituality.
 
True spirituality is full humanity, and full humanity speaks of an ever-deepening relationship with our heavenly Father. It is offered by the One who does not have to offer anything, yet wants to give everything. It is offered by the most wronged person, yet given to make your life right in the most important way: with Him. So please remember that it is possible to be free no matter what has happened to you.
 
 
This freedom, this forgiveness, this breaking of old moulds and this new life, comes through a person and not a system of ideas and principles. You are important, you are noticed and there is someone who is looking for you to turn to Him. He is looking for you to accept His Son. Your heavenly Father wants you to find forgiveness through Jesus and come into His story. He wants to break the chains that hold you down, remove the labels that others use to define you, and help you see your true identity as His son or daughter.
 
The Christian message is one of hope because it speaks of being able to trust in someone who knows all about you and who still gave His life so that you could come to new life in Him. The Christian message speaks of hope because death did not hold Jesus and He is the King of Kings who has power and authority over everything.
 
Christianity is the reality of communion with God here and now in a life that is lived in friendship and fellowship with the One who holds all things in His hands. Whilst you cannot change some of the things that have happened in the past, there is still hope. You can, in His power, find healing and wholeness and move forward in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, who will never leave you or forsake us. This life is found in accepting Jesus as Lord and Saviour and in recognising that He has paid the price for all wrong-doing.
 
In the Holy Spirit you do not have a pharmacist who is adept at dispensing pills.  Instead, you have a friend who will help you understand and grow in all that has been provided for you in your new family.
 
The Holy Spirit is the comforter and encourager and with His help and His way working through others in God’s family you will be able to grow into maturity no matter what has been going on in your life. In the Holy Spirit there is the continuation of Jesus’ work. Yet in order to experience this new life and friendship with God, this fellowship, this friendship, this life that your heavenly Father offers needs to be experienced first-hand or it will not really be known at all.
  
We are God’s workmanship, and He always sees the whole picture. He has not come to squeeze Himself into our version of life, but to lead us ever deeper into the new life that we can live by the Holy Spirit. He is waiting for you right now, so what are you going to do about it?
 
 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3:16-17
 
  
 
Be blessed.
 
Written and produced by Pastor Jem. C. 2013